Monday, October 28, 2013

History = the branch of knowledge dealing with past events; a continuous, systematic narrative of past events as relating to a particular people, country, period, person, etc.; acts, ideas, or events that will or can shape the course of the future – taken from Random House Webster’s College Dictionary

I really enjoy gathering with other moms to discuss homeschooling. This evening we gathered and discussed teaching history. The beauty of homeschooling is that everyone can put their own spin on the best practices for teaching.

I must confess we have never used a traditional history text in our homeschool. We read literature, sometimes supplementing with a spine book. Last year, I read aloud The Mystery of History Volume III and this was as close as we got to a history text. Any of our kids will tell you, history is one of their favorite subjects.

I recently read notes from a Rainbow Resource video called Sorting Out Social Studies. Janice Price, a Rainbow Resource Consultant, did a wonderful job explaining the concept of Social Studies and how teaching it differs among various homeschoolers. I have posted in the past about Various Methods of Homeschooling. I feel four of those methods that really apply to history are Traditional Textbook/Workbook; Classical; Unit Study; and Charlotte Mason/Living Book/Literature Study. I created a table sorting a variety of history resources and publishers by approach/method.

This is certainly not an all inclusive list, but it will give you some ideas and a place to start if you are researching curricula based on a certain methodology. Rainbow Resource also has a list of history curriculum they carry. Their list is broke down in a similar fashion as the one above.

I personally teach history using a variety of methods. We study history chronologically broke into time periods that would qualify as unit studies. We draw from spine and living books. Our kids narrate and complete notebooking pages. Each student keeps a timeline. I also try to incorporate a variety of hands on activities and take advantage of historical field trips whenever possible.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Did I ever tell you about Levi's love of tomatoes!?! One day Riley and I were working in the kitchen and some how Levi got the stool RileyAnn uses when she's cooking. Just take a look at what he got into....

What do you have baby? ....a TOMATO!!

Oh, it was so good...maybe I'll take another!

Hmm...what else can I find

...a pear!!

Look mama...

Hmm, maybe I better try another bite....

....Oh, I like pears too!!

Summer has come to an end here at Drywood Creek :( We've had several frosts and there's predicted snow flurries today! The gardens have been cleaned out, other than some onions and a couple heads of cabbage. We have canned tomatoes and tomato juice and 30 pints of grape jam set aside for winter. God is good :)

Saturday, October 19, 2013

If you read my profile, you'll see I'm a self proclaimed bibliophile. Yes, I LOVE books!! Aside from the Bible, my favorite books are historical in nature. Now, this was not always the case. As a child, I was not a reader.....gasp! It's true. I have vivid memories of my family reading Mother Goose rhymes and I know we were exposed to books, but I just didn't take the time to sit and read them myself. My best friend's mother was an English teacher and they practically lived at the library. But, not so much me. And history, well that was for dead people....ha! It all seemed so irrelevant and boring!

Fast forward...uh um, twenty years, and here I am loving books and particularly history. Even though I wasn't a reader personally, I believe I always understood the importance of reading. Probably, because of my fond Mother Goose memories :) So, how did I become not only an avid reader, but a book collector?

I hate to admit it, but it started in the mid 1990's with Oprah's Book Club. Oprah made reading seem interesting. I picked up a couple of her recommended books and was hooked. I started reading every chance I got. I even got audio books so I could read/listen while doing other things!

When Jennifer and Angel came to live with us, they were both early beginning readers. However, they had never been exposed to books outside of school. I started taking them to the library. They would bring home Scholastic Book orders and we'd buy a few books here and there. I created little contests to entice them to read. I remember reading them stories before bed and they'd get so excited! No one had ever read them a story before :( I couldn't believe it! I vowed then and there to make sure reading books together became a priority in our home.

This was not hard when RileyAnn was born. Like it or not, she's always been a bookworm. When she was just a wee toddler, she'd come bearing stacks of books. She would sit on our lap for hours turning pages, listening, and looking. It's kind of funny, The Farmer and I attended our first real book sale when she was just 4 weeks old. Just last week, we attended that same annual sale for the 10th year. I had no idea when The Farmer was carrying RileyAnn in her infant seat around the tables filled with books, that it would be the beginning of a tradition. We have since been to many sales and have amassed an arsenal of books.

Upon becoming a homeschool mama, I had to figure out how to teach my kids history. I knew I wanted to teach Biblical history, but I didn't want them to develop the aversion to history that I had. I looked at many different textbooks and just couldn't go there. I found a historic overview timeline and decided we would take a unit study approach and just use library books to study certain topics and time periods in history. At that point, I had never heard of Charlotte Mason and had no idea what a living book was.

Our 3rd year of homeschooling, I found Sonlight. Angel completed Core 100 for her 8th grade U.S. History study. She absolutely LOVED it! I used Sonlight K with RileyAnn and we LOVED that as well. Using Sonlight really helped me to see how to use literature and misc. books chronologically to pull the study of history together. However, I was not fond of the Sonlight Instructor Guides so I started to look at other programs that used literature as their base. We've since used My Father's World, Beautiful Feet, and TruthQuest History Guides. Unfortunately, many of the best books used in these programs are no longer available through the library. Or, there are so few copies, you can't get the books you need when you need them. This led me to start building our own library. It has become my mission to rescue older living books.

Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, our library has outgrown our school room. Last summer, The Farmer built a shelf in the garage for over flow. This summer, I added another shelf and moved all our history to the garage. This is not ideal since there is no temperature control there, but it appears to be the only option for now. At some point, we will need to find a more permanent long term solution. My dream is to some day open a living book library for other homeschool families. We'll see what God has to say about that....

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Ruben has been on an "I want to build a tree house" kick lately. After researching various books, he decided to make a model tree house. His plans were quite elaborate so the girls stepped in to help. Using wood, cardboard, and other recycled materials, they nailed and hot glued it together.

Riley has since claimed it for her Polly Pockets.

I enjoyed seeing the fruit of their labor. I am so thankful for homeschooling the children and their exuberant creativity!!

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Baby in a dishpan of water he's not supposed to be in;Dutch Apple Pies in the freezer; Making green slime; The kindness of a stranger jumping our dead battery; New battery; A ride with the boys;Clean towels....

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

My sister decided this week to pull her youngest child from a parochial school to homeschool her. We are very excited!! I helped her put together some curriculum and thought I would share her plan here since it's a different grade than our kiddos. Here goes...

2nd Grade

Bible/Character:
Draw to Learn Psalms by Charlene Notgrass

History/Geography:
TruthQuest American History for Young Students I
Time Traveler CD's
Beautiful Feet Early American History Primary
A Child's Geography of the World by V.M. Hillyer

Saturday, October 5, 2013

History/Geography:
TruthQuest American History for Young Students I
Time Traveler CD's
Beautiful Feet Early American History Intermediate
History Pockets This Country of Ours ?? (May be overkill - thinking about deleting)
Maps, Charts & Globes Level D
A Child's Geography of the World by V.M. Hillyer

Language Arts:
Oral & Written English Book 1
All About Spelling (moving slowly - contemplating Logic of English)
Pictures in Cursive - first term only
Reading lists for various subjects
Oral narration
One written narration per week
Book of Mottoes/copyworkEnglish from the Roots Up

Poetry:
Study 3 poets, one per term, using Poetry for Young People Series

History/Geography: - we study history 4x's per week
TruthQuest American History for Young Students I
Time Traveler CD's
Beautiful Feet Early American History Primary
History Pockets
Maps, Charts & Globes Level C - 1 lesson per week
A Child's Geography of the World by V.M. Hillyer - 2 chapters per week

Mathematics: 4x's per week
RightStart Mathematics - 12/13 update - switched to Sinagpore, but still dabbling with RS, especially games

There you have it! It may look like a lot, but it's going well for the most part. Here is a sample checklist for Riley's Term 1 so you can see how it shakes out from day to day. She does not use every resource every day.

RILEY’S YEAR 4 TERM 1 DAILY CHECKLIST

DAY
1 1
2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Draw to Learn Psalms

Math

Poem-Emily Dickinson

History

Copywork- Pictures in Cursive

BREAK-
outside 20 min

English

All About Spelling - Dictation

English Roots- copywk make 1 cd perfectly

Nature Walk and Journal

Physical
Education

PM-
Quiet Time (free
reading
)

DAY 2

Draw to Learn Pslams

Math

Poem-Emily Dickinson

Child’s Geography-1 ch (oral)

History

Copywork- Pictures in Cursive

BREAK-
outside 20 min

English

All About Spelling - Dictation

Flying Creatures

Physical
Education

PM-
Quiet Time (free reading)

DAY 3

Draw to Learn Pslams

Math

History

Copywork- Pictures in Cursive

Beautiful Girlhood

BREAK-
outside 20 min

English

All About Spelling - Dictation

Written
Narration

Handicraft

Physical
Education

PM-
Quiet Time (free reading)

DAY 4

Draw to Learn Pslams

Math

Poem-Emily Dickinson

Child’s Geography-1 ch (oral)

History

Copywork- Pictures in Cursive

BREAK-
outside 20 min

English

All About Spelling - Dictation

English Roots review

Physical
Education

PM-
Quiet Time (free reading)

DAY 5

Draw to Learn Pslams (optional)

Math Flash Cards/games

History (wrap up – may be optional)

Copywork- Pictures in Cursive

BREAK-
outside 20 min

English (optional)

Drill-review
old memory work

Handicraft

Nature Walk and Journal

Physical
Education

PM-
Quiet Time (free reading

You can see that we opted not to use English from the Roots Up. I originally scheduled it and then decided to hold off another year. I am contemplating making a few other adjustments to RileyAnn's materials as well as you may have noticed the question marks next to various resources above.

Math has been an ongoing crisis. I love the older textbooks, but need to figure out the best way to implement them. Some key topics I want RileyAnn to cover this year include place value through millions, multiplication, division, measurement & misc. geometry concepts, & Roman Numerals. I am re-looking at MUS Delta, RightStart, and Math on the Level to see if I can make them work.

It is my mission to empower other homeschooling families in real life, with real kids and in real time. Here you will find ideas for planning your homeschool, book lists for reading, and thoughts about education through daily living. Learn more about my family and I by clicking the "About Us" tab.